Wet Sides Story
by I.S.L.Supporter
Summary: During the whole day -even at lunch time- I couldn't help thinking of something wonderful, yet still unknown to me. Very deep in my mind it was, however; fresh, beautiful and homely.
1. To the Forest and beyond it

**Since the very moment I was born, not even my own mother could have guessed how odd, or strange, I would be.  
><strong>**She was perfect in her motherhood, of course; nothing to complain about that. It was only me, among other three babies, who needed ( and really needed ) something that most Cats would like to avoid.  
><strong>**During the whole day -even at lunch time- I couldn't help thinking of something wonderful, yet still unknown to me. Very deep in my mind it was, however; fresh, beautiful and homely. But nothing like that could be found nearby.  
><strong>**In my long periods of sleep it came, thru' strange dreams in which I was diving, and swimming, and jumping joyfully along with the..., the...  
><strong>**But I still hadn't a word for their name, and, nevertheless, in the dream we were linked in heart and soul.  
><strong>**Maybe it's here, where my story really starts, as well as the quest of my unknown true home.  
><strong>**  
>Let me tell you, then, the place where I was born was a small farm with some Horses and Goats, a group of hills to the north and a forest westwards.<br>****It was mid-summer and, through the long June northern evenings a low but continuous noise came sometimes to my ears. Something beyond the woods entered into my mind as if wanting to call me, and my spirit longed to be there, for the noise reminded me in some way that home of my dreams.  
><strong>**But no matter how I wanted to go there... Being so little ( oh, sorry, you still don't know I'm a girl, being my color the grey with black stripes ); so little then, for I was not much more than a year old, that it would take me almost two more years for my mom to let me checking out what was there.  
><strong>**Anyway, I was lucky when from the sky came a little sample of what appeared in my dreams. And as mom stayed on her comfortable rug, my brothers playing or looking through the windows, my tiny fifteen months old body was enjoying the raindrops on the tall green grass. Would you believe that? ...In a matter of seconds I was running in every direction, jumping over the fences, splashing, rolling and dragging myself in the muddy holes now filled with that precious thing which up to that day I only used to drink.  
><strong>**Believing myself crazy, after recovering some of my breath I decided to enter the forest wishing the drops never stopped their falling.  
><strong>**So what was this beautiful thing? ...As hundreds of drops continued falling from the sky, dying on the ground or running on my skin, I could see part of my world in the puddles where the same rain splashed and chimed.  
><strong>**Now anyone could have called me a crazy Cat. Already a long way from home and my family, for the rest of that day I searched under a rainfall the place to which I surely belonged to.  
><strong>**  
>Mom watched me coming back at sunset and called with anxiety mixed with reproach. Then she ran straight to me to carry my wet, disobeying person back to the farm... In her action of taking me, there were both maternal pride and decision. I couldn't move until she finished drying me and even then my mom wouldn't let me go out of her sight.<br>****Being forced to stay there, suddenly I felt tired in body and soul. Under mom's authority the tiredness took control of me and my little body didn't move from that spot until next morning.  
><strong>**What did I dream that night? Well, for me it's still hard to find the words, but if something was there, it was happiness, jumps over the water at incredible speed and a band of white foam. In the dream it was me, plus fifteen of my kind, following the white trace mostly for fun.  
><strong>**Surely you've already guessed who or what were we, but for me, the answer just could appear after a long time... Or never. So I started praying that it would come some day.  
><strong>**Next day dawned sunny... The wind had taken the fresh gift of raindrops far away from me.  
><strong>**Mom called us three times in the morning and four in the evening, to give us her milk and some other things. When she went to take a nap I found a chance to go outside.  
><strong>**Where could have the rain gone? I strove for hearing at least the single plink of a drop... Nothing absolutely. Then, a little downhearted, I went towards the Horses' fence and jumped on it.  
><strong>**There another sign of madness came into my mind, seeming for me a very good idea: a dark-skinned Horse turned to look at me for a few seconds, and when he continued browsing right beside the fence, I gave a short jump to fall on his back.  
><strong>**Now that was a real blind date with the danger! Scarcely the Horse felt my little nails when he turned himself into an equine earthquake. With the combined impulse of his reaction and mine, I flew more than 1,50 mts. to fall out of the fence perimeter... Surely having lost the first of my lives too soon.  
><strong>**  
>It seemed definitely the end of my quest and of every sign of eccentricity in me. For many days I had to stay at home, only sleeping or playing with my brothers, chasing them or being chased. Mom wouldn't have none of us out of her sight... I knew it was well, since we were her children; but if only there was in me the courage to tell her of my dream and then she understood me... One day I should gather the strenght to do that.<br>****One week came and passed, then another; and the chasing game with my brothers had completely lost any thrill for me. To make it worst, in that month it rained unceasingly for two days... I could do nothing but keep watching with sadness my beloved rain slipping by the glass and covering all the field around the farm.  
><strong>**Unexpectedly, mom came to comfort me, licking my face and neck. Then I turned to look at her and saw that for the first time she could understand my feelings.  
><strong>**Right after that, mom and I were watching side by side a Rainbow which lasted about seven minutes; and if I watched it as delighted as speechless, she appeared to have received a message. Because she nudged me gently from the chair to take me outside and walk with me to the very edge of the woods.  
><strong>**Over the grass still wet, beside the dark trees, she rubbed her neck against mine and turned back home, purring loudly to say goodbye.  
><strong>**Sudden loneliness, excitement, fear, freedom, all of it and more burned inside me in the moment of farewell.  
><strong>'**What's more -I thought, this time sadly-, that beautiful lights we saw in the sky are gone, too'.  
><strong>**I had now only a dream to find, beyond a big forest and a green sea. If I walked back home right now, mom would've felt very disappointed.  
><strong>'**Even if she doesn't know what I've been dreaming, mom will keep talking to her remaining children about how her daughter went far off in search of what she wanted above all after her family'.  
><strong>**...And since that wandering daughter wasn't ready to retrace her steps, I entered the forest for the second time.**


	2. It's my river!

**For almost three months I explored the forest, until every tree was well known to me. ****The first weeks I felt scared, of course, but one night that the rain came back, not even many thunders would've made me run frightened. I simply watched the lightnings on a tree bough, feeling in the best of chairs; and when the raindrops started their song I descended quickly to enjoy them.  
><strong>**There you could see me, lying by the tree in a sphinx position, with my beloved rain falling all over and around me; after a while I rested on one side and stretched. The pearled drops seemed to hit the grass with renewed strenght. It lasted half an hour, to turn into a light, yet continuous drizzle.  
><strong>**In what was part of my world, new thoughts came into my mind.  
><strong>**What was it really part of? ...Enjoying the rain this way, where could take me to? What was waiting beyond my own knowledge?  
><strong>**I'd have to leave the wood to find the answers. This particular thought came many hours later, as the first lights of day were already visible.  
><strong>**The dawn was grey, cold and cloudy; maybe it would rain again. Nothing of it could bother me now.  
><strong>**Now talking about lunch, if you asked me what was my meal made of, all that time, I would answer: two or three Squirrels and four unfortunate Birds which I found on the ground, surely wounded or dead because of the storm.  
><strong>**But I must confess you something: for some strange reason, not the Squirrels nor the Birds were much of my liking. Instead, my sense of taste was looking for a prey still unknown to me.  
><strong>'**So if there's a sea -I said myself in a meow-, it's not made of grass, but of mysteries... And all of them linked to me! Or by any chance to my dreams? I'd like to know right now!'  
><strong>**And what was I doing there, anyway? Even after lying on the wet grass under the rain, there were still those tall trees surrounding me. But where could I search for something without having seen it in all my life?  
><strong>**  
>In my heart a feeling of desperation began growing slowly. Then, remembering my pray about the answer I wanted, unspoken words of hope took shape again in my mind.<br>****Answers would come, albeit in the way and moment most unexpected. About seven days later, and two after another rainy day that this time didn't delighted me as much as the others, for the first time since I came to this forest I could hear that loud, continuous noise, now much nearer.  
><strong>**The mysterious noise reminded me strongly the rain, though it seemed to fall from nowhere and sing along the horizon.  
><strong>**Finally, beyond the western edge of my forest and at the end of a smooth ravine, I saw the source of that rain-like noise: a river was running southwards.  
><strong>**My first big discovery was there, before my very eyes. The river had grown because of the last rains (indeed, I knew about swellings only several months later), but the opposite bank was perfectly visible.  
><strong>**Now, what a wonderful place! There was hardly something better than that, if I knew a little about the world.  
><strong>**If mom were here to see me, so happy! If my brothers could enjoy the water with me!  
><strong>**But the thought of force them never crossed my mind and, however, if they would find the same pleasure I could feel, when being completely wet, surely no one of them would like to miss this experience.  
><strong>**While a little part of me wished that all of them were right there, my heart was full of joy when I swam in the watercourse; there I went to left and right; then two mts. under the surface; then learning about the stream and how to use it; then swimming a long distance up and downstream. It was maybe one hundred times better than staying under the raindrops, though of course I never forget how much I liked the rain.  
><strong>**After two hours of playing in each part of the stream, I left it to rest on a bank of sand almost as wet as me.  
><strong>**  
>The thought that nothing could be superior to that, as it's explained before, kept me by the river for three or four more months; the dawnings beyond my woods became part of every tree at the Fall season.<br>****Swimming in the middle of the stream (at least two times each day), soon I was an experienced Fish-Catcher. Even in my first days of exploration, you would have seen me reaching the middle of the river, taking a bit of air and going right to the sandy bottom, where small Fishes tried to hide under the pebbles or among some acquatic plants.  
><strong>**But, not knowing what to do about me, they always ended in my stomach if I wanted to catch them.  
><strong>**Now do you remember that Birds and Squirrels were not of my liking? Well, here was what I liked for a meal above all.  
><strong>**If mom would see me now... I don't know how many times this thought came into my mind. But of course, while I knew that she wasn't anywhere but the farm, she never could guess exactly where her wandering daughter was.  
><strong>**The moments that I most missed her and my brothers, were generally when the dawns blended with yellow-colored leaves covering the ground among trees.  
><strong>**When the last leaves had just fell from their branches -and after a week in which it rained as even I wouldn't have expected, for more than two days-, the Fall left his kingdom to the Winter.**

**Next morning I had just reached the eastern bank getting out of the water when a wind came thru' my forest whistling and singing; it was too cold for my wet hair. Then, doing what seemed to me more reasonable, I went back to the river and stayed -in the middle of a puddle- in my favorite sphinx position.  
><strong>**Only with my head and neck out of the water, in this way I found that if the weather was very cold, puddles were a good place to be a little warmer.  
><strong>**My new big discovery made me purr while because of the wind hundreds of lil' drops were running down my face or falling from my whiskers.  
><strong>**So having found this beautiful place, could I go on looking something else? Then I said to myself: 'If there's indeed anything much bigger than this river, well, the years of my life are still long enough for me to find it '.  
><strong>**However, my strange dreams didn't stop coming. Just two days later, a new one would come in which we -the Swimming Group- now seemed to dance above the water... The first time I saw my home of dream from outside; it looked like a stream without any limit except for the coast. An incredibly long coastline where the water ran on the wet sand, coming and going as endlessly as swiftly.  
><strong>**A great flock of Birds was flying not far from the shore; some of them would launch themselves into the water to come out after a few seconds with a fish inside their mouth.  
><strong>**All this images appeared so vividly in my dream, that I thought I should've known where this place was.  
><strong>**But it wasn't true; and if I left the river without any sign which took me in the right direction, it would've been no more than a long but fruitless quest.  
><strong>**Now back to myself, with the water of my puddle covering most part of me, after all I couldn't spend there the entire day, no matter how charming it would seem to me.  
><strong>**Without stopping my purr, I walked to sleep on the grass letting the wind dry my hair; I wouldn't dive again in the stream for fishing until it was evening.  
><strong>**By the way... ( Shhhh, it's one of my little secrets ), through all my days beside the river, this bed of grass was for me what the rug was for my mom, there, in the farm.  
><strong>**So I slept there more than two hours. When my body got a little cold, in my awakening, I walked for a while following the coastline to the north.****  
><strong>

**Suddenly, one day -a week after the new dream I told you about-, something big came long after midday, swimming by the waterway, going southwards.  
><strong>'**Hey, it's My river' -I said to that thing immediately. But I stood watching until it was out of sight.  
><strong>**The rest of that afternoon I laid on the grass, meditating in what I had seen, not far from the water, under a soft rain which later got stronger.  
><strong>'**What could it be?' -My young mind was wondering. 'Could mom know the answer? And anyway, what was it?'  
><strong>**Only getting into the floating thing I'd find some of the answers.  
><strong>**Then I took a walk in the woods, still under the thick rain, to a rock half buried in the ground and covered with mold, where I sat looking to the east with some nostalgia; for in that direction was the farm.  
><strong>**Obviously I missed them all, mom and brothers, yet my own choice had taken me there, and if they were thinking I was happy, it had to be true.  
><strong>**By sunset when rain went away I entered the river in search of Fishes. Near the sandy bottom I found up to three of a size big enough.  
><strong>'**If mom could see me now...' -Thought my mind for the 100th time or more. She had just started teaching us to hunt when I left home and now here I was, catching under the surface a prey harder to trap than Birds. She would be very proud of me.  
><strong>**On the other hand, this very act of going under water to find my lunch made me wish that I could live in the river for the rest of my life... But still, it was no more than a beautiful dream.  
><strong>**So I came out again from there with a little sigh, to spend that night between my river and the forest.**


	3. The Sea of Water

** Another dawn found me sleeping by a tree; the cold of that moment seemed to turn my body into an ice statue, but I was already getting used to such weather.  
><strong>** Only the question of the previous afternoon -about mom seeing me now-, put me in a very melancholic state, thinking if it wasn't me who wished to go back to the farm every day to see her and my brothers.  
><strong> '**It wouldn't be so bad -I thought with tearing eyes-, but then how could I fulfill my dream?'  
><strong>** Never again my own choice hurted me like then... But no, it couldn't be my decision! It had to be the loneliness.  
><strong> '**Just that', thought I, letting more tears to fall. When my heart was a little relieved -and at midday the weather less windy- I went back to the river in search of Fishes.  
><strong>** Up to the surface; breathing; to the bottom again. From four to six times I had to repeat this process... Not that it bothered me, but the Fishes were sometimes too hard to catch.  
><strong>** Anyway, an hour later I walked out of the river with my hunger well sated, ready to take a nap on the bank.  
><strong>** In the middle of my sleep, suddenly the water reached the point where I was; my body reacted standing up quickly, as the cold water got into my nose. But soon I realized it: the stream had grown again.  
><strong>** So I stayed there, only with my head on a rock high enough to keep myself breathing with no problems.**

** An hour later I woke up and -foolish though you may call it- I had a mind to play like a little girl... Then I jumped and fell in the water; rolled over, on the flooded bank and under the surface a bit closer to the middle; tried to stay diving after taking a bit of air; then to jump upwards from submerged rocks with all my strenght.  
><strong>** Right after the fourth of this jumps, I stayed exactly where I had fell, amazed for my own behavior.  
><strong>**...Because that was just what the beautiful 'Swimming Group' was doing in my dreams, along with me.  
><strong>** Now what I really was? ...A crazy Cat who only wanted to live underwater?, or I thought myself a Fish? Why didn't any answer come to let me finish my quest?  
><strong>** Still in that same spot, standing, but scarcely with the upper side of my face above the surface, to breath and look around, even in that strange situation I stayed thinking about my third big discovery.  
><strong>** Then I started swimming slowly by the middle of the stream, for about ten minutes, but little or nothing else came to my mind, to let me know the strange truth about myself.  
><strong>** Sorrowful once more, I got out of my beloved river to flop on the sand bank, looking at the water.  
><strong> '**Why don't you tell me now?' -I asked, weeping. 'As if it didn't care how much I love you... But maybe it's only a fool who talks to a water stream. And yet you gave me as much as you hid from me. Now all I wish is to be part of that beautiful group of my dreams. And you should know... If that never happened I'd let myself drown, giving away to you my body, rather than dying without the answer '.  
><strong>** After that, I didn't have the inner strenght to move from there, for the rest of that day and a good part of the night.  
><strong>** Resting on my right side, watching how the Moon climbed from beyond my watercourse, suddenly I hoped that she would answer all my questions; she just passed by, in her journey, just like the stream. New tears watered my eyes, before I could get to sleep.**

** Next morning I woke up late, only because the river had had another swelling and another cold tongue of water reached me in a little but quick wave.  
><strong>** This time, however, I didn't even move a nail.  
><strong>** The river wanted to tell me something? ...I was still waiting.  
><strong>** Maybe simply wanted my body? ...My life, up to that day, was completely already of his.  
><strong>** Some minutes later I rolled over slowly to rest on my right side, always with the tongue of water around me; my half closed eyes suddenly perceived a figure coming by the river from the south... It was no other than that mysterious floating thing!  
><strong>** All my sorrows disappeared instantly, replaced with curiosity.  
><strong>** Leaving aside most of precautions I entered my river hurriedly to follow the newcomer, wishing that it was unawared of my presence.  
><strong>** But soon came to my ears loud voices that reminded me some I had heard in the farm.  
><strong>** They then lifted me in a round net at the end of a long pole ( How humilliant! ) and put my soaked body on the afterdeck for me to dry, in a way I didn't want.  
><strong>** Leaving aside my strong desire of jump quickly back into the river, then calming down, I smelled here and there to make sure of where I was, but there was not any doubt: it was made to carry Fish.  
><strong>** The ship -as they called it- swam in the waterway northwards, taking us to a city where lots of Fish were left in baskets which, in spite of their size, seemed specially made for Cats to sleep.  
><strong>** It was a world completely different from my old home of the farm and also from my forest; but something here spoke me of the place I saw in dreams.  
><strong>** In the evening our ship started swimming again, back to the south, taking me and the others. An hour later, or so, it passed beside my woods; I went to the prow to take a look of the trees from there, then of the river that followed ahead. Well, you know what? Not in a million years could I have guessed what the ship would find at the end of our journey.  
><strong>**  
>We arrived by nightfall to another city -this one much bigger than the other-, with houses whiter than clouds, Fishes in baskets almost all around, Grapevines and Olive trees everywhere, instruments being played whose sound was some kind of 'plink, ting..., plink, ting...' ( now, here I thought, they're genius, making exactly the sound of raindrops! ) ...But, besides it all, finally I heard and saw what I've been really looking for.<br>**** The 'Sea of Water', I thought, astounded before him.  
><strong>** I walked towards the beach solemnly. Maybe any other day my reaction would have been radically opposite: running breathless like crazy and by leaps in the Sea, only to stop at twenty meters from the coast.  
><strong>** This moment required instead a dignified attitude; it took me ten minutes to be there sitting where the water would reach almost to my chest.  
><strong>** Flussshhhhhh... Waves came pushing me a little; swosssshhhh... They retired, dragging softly my body and the sand. Then the process repeated itself, endlessly.  
><strong>** And what an incredible feeling!  
><strong>** My Cat nose, for instance, catched as many smells as all the months of my life. From under the wet sand to the air which ran above the Sea, every smell had a life of its own.  
><strong>** Then, the colors: shining microscopic stars at the shore, shining galaxies in all the water surface.  
><strong>** Then the sounds... After having heard the raindrops chime, and while the river had his song, now I was listening to an orchestra and a chorus.  
><strong>** You just try to imagine all of that at the same time ( scents, lights, sand, sea and sounds ) to have some idea of what I was experiencing there.  
><strong>** And I definitely wasn't crazy: the moment I felt water running down my face, it was only tears of joy, for having found my long desired home.  
><strong>**  
>That very night, alone in that part of the beach, I spent about an hour swimming as far from the shore as waves would let me. By the way, it was my time to discover two more things: first, the stunning power of the Sea; I kept on and on trying to swim among waves which retreated and almost immediately bursted against the coast, in a confused cloud of foam and sand.<br>**** Second, the first draught of water that I swallowed accidentally made me the effect of having eaten sand; but soon it stopped bothering me. In less than three days I got used to drink Sea water... Mainly by licking my hair sometimes, after swimming there.  
><strong>** Five days passed then, in which I stayed mostly between sand and waves; only in the evening I'd walk an hour or two by the city. I used to watch the flocks of Birds, ships sailing out, the countless white and blue waves; and, of course, resting on the wet sand or diving into the Sea.**


	4. One with the Jumping Group

**Then, six days after my arriving to that city, they came from the ocean.  
><strong>**They were bright like silver; fast as arrows; as many as fifteen; and merry like playing children.  
><strong>**But merry though they could be, their happiness was hardly much bigger than mine, because it was them... The 'Jumping Group'.  
><strong>'**My brothers of dreams!' -With a smile in all my face I went to their meeting, stunning the fishermen; or at least tried it, now in that 'radically opposite' way. As the coming waves pushed me back and down, sending me to roll on the disturbed sand, I went on struggling; my idea of reaching them still burned inside.  
><strong>**Two of them gave a jump at some three meters in front of me. Then, right after a bigger wave sent me up and down to the bottom, my little soul cried for their help.  
><strong>**Now I can tell you: if for a moment there was fear in me because of the water, definitely it was then.  
><strong>**But one of them came to my help... And he appeared to say 'Have no fear, Little Creature', as he nudged me with his nose up to the surface where I found again the breath of life.  
><strong>**There I swam in zig-zags, surrounded by my brothers of the Sea; the coast now was further than usual from me.  
><strong>**A wave formed on my left (already I had learned that it was better to swim following the coastline); it looked again menacing, but being them all around my heart was no longer afraid.  
><strong>**Then my brothers got closer to the beach where fishermen were gathering and I followed them.  
><strong>**At that moment the waves took me back to the shore, so a little inner sadness filled my heart again.  
><strong>**Now as they were near the fishermen, I ended understanding: in this case, a ship (big or small) was more convenient to get close to my aquatic brothers.  
><strong>**Of course the swimming way was much more of my liking, but what counted were the results. And so I started going on boats or in ships, to launch myself from the bow and swim in a safe place along with my now beloved 'Sea-Kittens'.  
><strong>**  
>Well, surely you're wondering what or who I loved more... Let me explain, then: as you will remember, I still liked to do anything under the rain. At least one time you could have seen me running just for fun in the middle of a great storm, with furious gusts of wind and water.<br>****In second place, I couldn't forget the river of my forest, where most of my feelings arose in me as I discovered all his hidden wonders.  
><strong>**And finally, it was my heart who felt all the love for the Sea, while my soul was strongly bonded with that wonderful creatures.  
><strong>**Well, as I was saying, I was on the prow of a small ship, ready to jump into the water; many fishermen watched in amazement.  
><strong>**Ploush... My little black-grey striped body dove near three or four 'Sea-Kittens' (****of course, being a Cat and they my brothers there, what other name would I have given ****to them?); now, for us in the water, it was like 'A party has started'. They didn't pay much more attention to boats or fishermen... Their perfect playmate was there.  
><strong>**So a couple of them stayed one meter under me, then the one on the right went up slowly, so I could go on his back, and took me there for a while, swimming side by side with the other.  
><strong>**Also carefully, or I'd say softly, they pushed me with their noses, making me fly about one meter, and waiting for me to fall once again among the waves.  
><strong>**And every time I dived they wouldn't let me sink or drown myself. On the contrary, a 'Sea-Kitten' was always ready to help me go back to the surface if I wasn't able.  
><strong>**Our game lasted until midday, when boats went back to the quay. I returned as well, on my ship, with the only idea of taking a long nap in a good place of the beach. Fishermen headed mostly to their homes, and I fell asleep with the marine symphony lulling me lovingly.  
><strong>**In the sleep strange dreams suddenly started, but it was only because it was raining. I woke up and stretched out; then looked around for a moment and stayed on the sand.  
><strong>**After waking up for the second time, I walked under a rather cold drizzle to the city in search of Fish. Since everyone knew me there, I was very likely to get something.  
><strong>**Hours passed like many other waves; day by day I would venture alone in the Sea, from twenty minutes to an hour each time. In this way I learned about high and low tides; about where to swim a long way of the coast to return safe and sound; how to fish by myself in the best place of the Sea, going straight to the bottom and emerging with my prey (unfortunately, this wouldn't happen so often, because of a little problem about the salt water in my eyes); and, above all, the moments in which I could rejoin the group of 'Sea-Kittens'.  
><strong>**  
>After two days of stormy weather and strongly troubled waters, in which there was only me at the coast (a little lone soul sitting there to intimate more than ever with the ocean) the ship that had brought me there was ready to sail upstream, to leave his baskets of Fish in that city on the north.<br>****So I decided aboarding him to visit my mom and brothers in the farm.  
><strong>**Our ship had just started his journey when already my heart missed the Sea; but I talked to her, promising her that by night she would be again surrounded by the love of the Sea.  
><strong>**Some minutes after midday we passed near my forest... I went to the prow and launched to the river, to swim slowly towards the bank. By the way, I had almost forgotten how pleasant this water was to be in it.  
><strong>**Now, with less than four hours to be back by the river, I walked fast through the forest (not only the time limit, though, was making me go faster).  
><strong>**A strong wind blew out of the eastern edge of the forest; my old fields of grass now seemed another sea.  
><strong>**Some Horses and Goats were browsing not far from the house.  
><strong>**All my Cat family was surely inside; I hurried to get by the house and jumped to the window sill to see if they were in that room... There I saw one of my brothers, and also my mom (the other family member would be near, as well).  
>'Meoooow'; 'Meeeeow'; 'Meowwww', three voices recognized one another instantly, then came a fourth. Someone opened the window; they jumped out to join me on the ground outside.<br>****Only my heart's mom (I could say) knew that it was really me; my brothers appeared as happy as baffled... Surely for my combined scents of olives, black grapes, fish, grass, river water, wet sand, sea water and wooden ships to which I had got so used.  
><strong>**How many things could I have told them! ...But since the ship would get near my woodland in about three hours, I convinced them somehow to go with me to the river.  
><strong>**Four Cats -mother and kids- walked across the forest that I also knew very well. Four Cats -me, mom and two brothers- reached the bank of a river that none of them had ever imagined to see.  
><strong>**We were leaning near the stream; my brothers and mom looking at it seemingly interested.  
><strong>**Now I had decided to stay with them on the dry ground, until my ship would reappear, but something incredible for me then happened.  
><strong>**Mom stood up and walked calmly straight to the river; and (as if she had done it all through her life) began to swim!  
><strong>**More than stunned, I shook my head to see if it was true, two or three times... But indeed she was there!  
><strong>**So I followed my mother, joyfully, to reach her near the middle of the stream.  
><strong>**Now everything was perfect: we were there to enjoy together that moment and maybe to protect one another. When we returned to the bank, I stayed where the water reached some ten cm. above the sand. There I had another big surprise, as my brothers came to play with me  
>right there our old chasing game; they surely wouldn't swim with me, but now it didn't care.<br>****We ran during fourty minutes, jumped, rolled over as if fighting, and sometimes (after breathing long enough) I hid myself completely from them under the water, as ****if playing 'Hide and Seek'.  
><strong>**Just then, my ship reappeared in the distance; mom and my brothers watched with wide open eyes as he was approaching. Then I rubbed my neck against theirs and licked them for our second farewell. They now stayed at the bank, meowing loudly, while from the ship they helped me again to get on board.  
><strong>**  
>My ship sailed southwards and that very night I was once more sitting there, where the smooth waves, sliding on that sand time after time, would surround me in a big friendly hug; another ocean, made of happiness, was in my heart.<br>****My love for the Sea kept me by his side for the rest of my life; every four months, though, I went to visit my mother and brothers, who ****started one day willingly waiting for me beside the river.  
><strong>**And before two years full of days to swim and play in the ocean -alone or enjoying with the 'Sea-Kittens'-, I fell in love with whom helped me  
>that day to get to the surface. Remember him?<strong>

**But, ssshhhh... It's another of my little secrets.**


End file.
